All posts tagged: femaletravel

My first solo trip of the year has come to be one of those big places I haven’t managed to see before. 2 years ago Paris, last year Budapest and now it was about time to pay Rome a visit. You know I’m not a big fan of classical sightseeing but you can hardly go to Rome without passing by a whole repertoire of staggering architecture every 5 minutes. At the same time, staying in the artists’ quarter Trastevere right across the Tiber gave me all the opportunities to just roam around and soak all the buzzing city life in. I’m normally not a person who changes her mind constantly but I struggled a bit with the choice of my hotel. In the end, I decided for the lovely Residenza Doria Pamphilj. The old building was situated in a small yard within the nooks of Trastevere, had an absolutely beautiful garden and modern, spacious rooms. As it was both in Trastevere and directly located at the Tiber close to the centre, it was the ideal …

With living so close, I have come to be a regular Morocco traveller by now. Hardly any other destination can put one into a whole new setting within not even a 2-hour-flight. It’s this compelling chaos that takes me back again and again. Fez is often recommended as a first stop in Morocco and yet it took me some Marrakech and Tangier as well as Essaouira trips to come here. Once the country’s capital and with one of the biggest medinas in the world, Fez has a lot to offer. Yet it has kept in my opinion more of its original tradition and pace. It’s less touristy, less entertaining than Marrakech and at the same time less rough than the coastal cities Tangier and Essaouira. The 2017 edition of Lonely Planet Morocco describes its medina as rather rundown and ragged. Arriving in Fez, I experienced quite the contrary: Initiatives to let the medina shine in new splendour have already brought out a visible effect. I arrived in Fez late in the evening and was directly …

There is trips that involve meeting your new partner’s family and there’s trips that involve meeting your new partner’s family in Andalusia. I was lucky enough to go on the second one. Not that I choose my partners according to such criteria. I can’t deny the one or other advantage, though. So when the August sun stood the highest in Barcelona, I decided to head south to Córdoba and Granada – at 42ºC. You see the introduction to the family did come with some inconvenience, too. As I could not complain about any other detail than the heat though, I’m taking you with me to the magnificent south of Spain where siestas are long, food comfortingly heavy and conversations heated. The train took me from Barcelona to Córdoba in four and a half hours. With its white and yellow facades, beautiful architecture and candid people it reminded me much of Sevilla. Yet the city has so many Moorish influences, unique cuisine (Salmorejo! Flamenquines!) and tranquil vibes that it easily stands out. The Urban Vida Stays …

With so many travels this year already made and published here, I haven’t managed to tell about one of the greatest ones last October until now. In fact, it had been my first solo travel in a very long while and somewhat meant the world to me. Having moved to Barcelona last summer and mastered all the new challenges, I felt like treating myself to an exciting yet relaxing trip. Living in Spain, the options are beautiful and endless obviously, so I decided to visit Andalusia and then cross over to Morocco. I first wanted to split those two destinations into separate postings but as I’m not selling any city guides here but rather sharing my experiences, I opted for placing it all in one. Which leaves you with dozens of images more to scroll through and me with a serious case of travel nostalgia. As you might have figured out by now, I’m quite the spontaneous traveller so I didn’t plan that much when booking a flight from Barcelona to Seville and one back …

To tell you the truth I was a little afraid of travelling to Lisbon. Not because it’s a particularly scary kind of place. But because I considered moving to Barcelona or Lisbon last year without having been in either of the two cities before. As you know, I opted for Barcelona and feared I would fall head over heels for the Portuguese capital now. Let’s say I have a serious crush but my love for Barcelona remains incontestable. But now it’s time to focus on that little love affair with Lisbon for a few images and lines (sorry Barcelona!). I arrived in Lisbon late at night and headed straight to my lovely Airbnb. Bob Dylan over the bed, Woody Allen in the living room and beautiful views from anywhere in the apartment made this place the perfect basis for a weekender. As it was my birthday the next morning and I had only 1.5 days in the city, I decided to spend a very easy, laid-back city trip. I started strolling the streets of Bairro …

There are places you want to return to every time you step on your flight back home. Morocco has had this spell on me ever since I set foot in the country. So even though I have a trip to Fez coming up in October, I couldn’t pass on the opportunity to slot in a 4-day-holiday to Marrakech and Essaouira this June. It was my third time in Morocco and my second as a female solo-traveller. I am asked very often how it is to (solo-)travel Morocco, so instead of only sharing trillions of photos in this post (but don’t worry: I have managed to accommodate nearly 70 images nonetheless), I will also share some experiences and impressions for those of you who are specifically interested in these topics. With a taxi I travelled 3 hours from Marrakech Airport to Essaouira at the coast for a very fair amount of 600 dirham (approximately 60 Euros). I did not choose the Supratours bus on this day because my arrival did not exactly match the bus times, …

Budapest is one of those places I had had on my bucket list for years but always postponed in my travel plans for the one or other reason. A lover of crisp cold with some lack of snow home in Barcelona, I decided to finally pay the Hungarian capital a visit for a weekend in January. Arriving late on a Friday night, I began my strolls through -12°C (I wanted cold, I got cold!) Budapest early on Saturday morning. I have this thing for washed-out facade colours, abandoned places and everything fin de siècle so it was pretty obvious this city would take my travel heart by storm. In an unremarkable backyard I came across fekete, a lovely café in Erzsébetváros, the 7th district of Budapest. Excellent coffee and a soothingly hot shakshuka awaited me here. Warmed up, I continued walking through the city with music on my ears and first little snowflakes falling onto my face. And while it was getting colder and colder outside, I found countless cozy shelters around. A particularly charming one: Zoska …